Alex McLeish, the beleaguered manager of Aston Villa, could be forgiven for experiencing an unsettling sense of deja vu. His side's 1-0 defeat by Manchester United last Saturday has left the club with a record of P14 W3 D7 L4, matching precisely the results of Birmingham City, the team he left in the summer following their relegation, at the same stage of last season. One difference, however, is that City supporters were not calling for him to be sacked.

"I'm not a quitter," McLeish said after Villa's latest setback when his players were not only booed off at full time but left the field at half-time to a chorus of derision as the home fans vented their anger at what they perceive to be the manager's negative tactics.

McLeish is aware that his side are struggling and has pinpointed the poor service his midfielders are supplying to Darren Bent, right, as the significant factor in their slump. The England centre-forward has scored five league goals this season in 13 appearances but a more alarming statistic demonstrates how isolated the striker has become. Bent has touched the ball on average only 24.6 times per game, a figure that gives him the dubious honour of being the Premier League player with the fewest touches this season. Worryingly for McLeish, Bent's strike partner Gabriel Agbonlahor is also in the bottom 10 for players with the fewest touches in 2010-11 with an average of 39 per game but the Scot is more concerned about his midfielders' inability to make better use of his more established England international forward.

"He does make great movement," said McLeish. "It's just a pity that sometimes we don't have quite the quality to see his runs and his movement."

The manager has tried different permutations in midfield to try to get Bent firing but admits he is finding it difficult to come up with the most suitable combination. "It's not easy," he said. "I'm just juggling the balls and asking for players to give me outstanding performances to stay in this team. We're looking for horses for courses every week now rather than saying: 'I can't leave him out.'

"[I am getting] seven out of 10 but we're looking for eights or nines and any of the midfielders that are ready to do that will be in this team." So far in 14 games this season he has called on Stilian Petrov, Stephen Ireland, Barry Bannan, Fabian Delph, Jermaine Jenas and Chris Herd to fill the central midfield roles but between them they have made only two of Villa's 16 goals.

McLeish recognises that the poor service through the middle is a long-standing problem. "We created 10 chances in the Norwich game," he said, "and he [Bent] got a couple of goals and could have had another couple so we are capable of doing it depending on our personnel. I've watched a couple of games from last season and Bent only had one chance in the Manchester City game, his debut, and scored so he was starved of service that night as well."

The winger Charles N'Zogbia, who was signed from Wigan for £9.5m in July, was expected to be the creator-in-chief for Bent but has made only one goal so far and was dropped on Saturday for a breach of club discipline.

He returned to training on Monday after failing to report for treatment on an injury last week and McLeish, who is understood to have also fined the Frenchman, said that as far as he was concerned the issue was now closed and the player would be in the squad to face Bolton at the Reebok on Saturday.

"There are no grudges," McLeish said. "We are looking to guys like Charles to come to the fore. Charles has got to be receptive and realise I want to help him and every single player at this club."

McLeish, who will have to cope for a month without his other major summer signing Shay Given who has been ruled out until the new year with a hamstring injury, accepts that he is finding winning the fans over after his cross-city move even more difficult than he first anticipated and understands why they turned on the team during Saturday's defeat. "I'm not going to criticise the fans," he said. "I'm not a quitter and I'll go as far as I can to get this club turned around. I don't think we really believed in ourselves. The fans did not like it. I wasn't particularly keen on it either. I was in unison with the fans on that one."

The turnaround he so desperately seeks depends on encouraging his players to foster a similar unison with Bent.